


We've Become Nocturnal

by telm_393



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brain Damage, Friendship, Gen, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha, Sam, Bucky, and Steve get through the day together, but late at night it's just Sam and Natasha and hushed conversations while they wait for morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've Become Nocturnal

Right now, they’re living in a cabin in Canada. In a few weeks, or a few months, or a year, Sam and Steve and Natasha will go back to their jobs, or, in the case of Steve and Natasha, what’s left of their jobs, and maybe Bucky will trust doctors enough to let them look him over.

They’ve been in Canada for three days and Bucky’s been with them for seven. He mostly remembers Steve’s name and face even if sometimes he doesn’t remember that Steve’s big now and asks why he is over and over again. Steve doesn’t seem to mind explaining.

Steve knows that having Bucky back at all is a miracle, even though sometimes it hurts that he remembers everything so clearly and Bucky doesn’t remember much at all, Natasha can tell. She has learned to read emotions over time, has had to, and what she sees in Steve is happiness and relief mixed with sadness, anger, confusion, because Bucky now is so far from Bucky then.

It's hardest for Bucky, of course. He gets frustrated because he knows he should be remembering at least some, if not most of, the things that Steve remembers, gets frustrated because his words don't come out right. He gets violent because he's terrified of going back, of being back in the chair he told them about once with a far-away quality to his voice. 

Sam and Steve spent two months looking for Bucky before Natasha joined them.

She wanted to help Steve, sure, but really she caught up to them because she was bored. She was tired of being away from the action. She was tired of finding herself among all the people she’s been and will be.

It took another month to find Bucky in the rubble of another Hydra cell, sitting on the floor with the bodies of Hydra scientists surrounding him, staring into the distance. He’d looked up at Steve and his eyes had focused. He’d said, “You’re Captain America.” He’d frowned. “I’m…I’m James Buchanan Barnes. But I prefer Bucky.”

And then he’d said, “Why are you crying?”

+

Natasha sleeps, but she doesn’t sleep like the others do, doesn’t sleep at night for more than three hours. During the day, if she’s tired—and she’s usually not, she’s never been able to afford being tired—she takes catnaps in her room with the door locked.

It’s not just her training. She’s never been able to stay asleep for long, not with the way all of her dreams twist and spin and make her motion sick with their swirls of red on white and black and blue, with the sound of snapping bones and choked off screaming.

It takes her too long to realize that Sam sleeps like she does. It’s because he doesn’t leave his room like she does until one night, when she feels him in the tiny living room. She’s watching television—she’s not really watching television, the channel’s on infomercials and it’s on mute anyway—and turns her head so that her eyes meet his. When she was a child she wasn’t fond of eye contact. Now she stares into other people’s eyes so intently that they can’t help but look away.

Sam doesn’t look away. He’s wearing a loose shirt and sweatpants like her, and he moves with a precision she admires. He sits next to her and says nothing.

With Clint, they were equal when it came to who spoke first. But Clint’s not here right now, and with these men she speaks first. “You don’t sleep much,” she says.

Sam chuckles quietly, warmly, but she feels the thread of exhaustion that runs through his laughter. “Neither do you.”

“Do you dream?” Natasha asks. She doesn’t ask do you have nightmares? because she knows that good dreams are the exception to the rule.

“I think all of us do.”

It’s true. Steve wakes at seven in the morning with shadows under his eyes if Bucky doesn’t wake up screaming earlier than that. And Bucky wakes up screaming more often than not.

Sleep is an enemy to all of them, but Natasha and Sam are the only ones who can fight against it. Steve is too attached to his routine to break it and Bucky tires quickly after being pushed too hard for too long.

Natasha nods. She doesn’t ask what Sam’s dreams are about, because she doesn’t want him to ask about hers, to ask about that part of her life, the part she doesn’t want to understand. Besides, Sam’s a man who listens to others, not the kind who talks about himself.

They sit together until red-tinted sunlight begins to spill through the window.

Down the narrow hall, Bucky starts to scream.

+

Sam makes breakfast. It’s nothing special, just scrambled eggs, and Bucky and Steve pick at it. Bucky’s eyes are red-rimmed and there’s exhaustion in the droop of his shoulders. Steve’s pretending that he’s not looking at Bucky like he’s going to disappear at any moment.

Sometimes Natasha wonders if that look of fear and wonder will ever go away, if it’ll always be somewhere in Steve’s eyes when he looks at his best friend.

“You guys should actually eat,” Sam says. “Or I’ll be offended. I spent time on these eggs.”

Natasha snorts. “Ten minutes, tops,” she mumbles out through a mouthful.

Bucky and Steve both automatically take a bite at the same time. They’re both methodical in how they eat, one bite after the other like it’s a chore. It’s been a long night.

It’s a good demonstration of why Natasha barely sleeps and hasn’t since she was young. It’s not worth it, not for her. They’re all long nights, no matter how well-rested you should be in the morning.

Today isn’t a bad day, not like yesterday, because yesterday Bucky forgot where he was and nearly managed to stab Steve in the neck with the jagged end of a broken plastic knife.

Today, though, he wanders around the cabin, sometimes pausing to sit on the couch and flick through television channels without much interest. On occasion he asks Steve where they are and why they’re here, but it’s not angry or frantic, just curious and confused. He remembers them all well enough to know he’s with people who won’t hurt him, that Steve’s his best friend, though he still has to ask for Natasha and Sam’s names several times.

Sam and Natasha make macaroni and cheese from the box for dinner, and they all sit around the table together like they’re some sort of family.

+

The moon is full tonight, and Sam joins her on the couch to watch it an hour after she wakes up with her hair pasted against her forehead with sweat and words she can’t quite grasp the meaning of ringing in her ears. In her dreams, she is usually a child, and she hates it, hates the powerlessness of her younger years.

“You again,” she says with good humor.

“Me again,” he agrees, leaning against the armrest of the couch. He sighs. “You know, when I was little my dad would make up all these stories about the moon and the people who lived on it.” He snorts. “I was a gullible kid. Took me a while to realize they were just stories.”

She smiles. “Tell me one.”

He does. It really is the kind of story one would tell an impressionable child, a fairy tale, really, princes and princesses included, but she doesn’t mind.

“No one ever told me stories when I was little,” she murmurs when he’s done, still staring out at the moon.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I knew my parents, but barely. I’ve been trained to be who I am today for as long as I can remember.”

She doesn’t know why she says it. Maybe because it’s three in the morning and she’s feeling empty and wants to remind herself that she was a little girl once. Maybe because Sam Wilson is there and she wants a witness too, someone who knows she didn’t just appear in the world fully formed and deadly.

He’s a good choice.

He doesn’t say he’s sorry. She’s not looking for that, she’s not looking for an apology, just for somebody to listen.

And Sam is the kind of man who listens, the kind of man who understands that she wants the story acknowledged only in the most peripheral way.

So he says, “My parents were good people who died too young.”

She moves closer to him until they’re leaning together. “Tell me about them.”

“Some other time,” Sam says.

+

The morning is warm and Bucky and Steve go out for a walk, leaving Natasha and Sam in the cabin.

Natasha makes tea while Sam lounges on the counter of the kitchen island.

She pushes a mug into his hands and he looks surprised. “I never drink tea,” he informs her, but he takes a sip anyway.

Their silence is comfortable. Natasha’s never quite been the type to fill up all of the empty spaces around her and others with useless chatter, but she’s never quite been the type not to.

But the silence in this cabin wraps around it like a blanket, and she likes burrowing in it.

They finish their tea together and Sam says, “Maybe next time we should take that walk with them.”

Natasha gives him a crooked smile. “How ‘bout just the two of us?”

He shoots the same kind of smile back at her. “Why not? They need their time alone anyway.”

When Bucky and Steve get back, Sam and Natasha head out, Natasha waving at Bucky, who waves back, and squeezing Steve’s shoulder.

They spend a while wandering through the woods. Natasha traces shapes on rough bark and says,   “How do you think they’re doing?”

“I think they’re gonna be okay. How are you doing? Hiding out in the middle of nowhere and all.”

“I’ve been in worse situations.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, me too.”

That night, Natasha offers Steve and Bucky tea while Sam makes macaroni and cheese yet again.

“No thank you,” Bucky says, and then, after a pause, “Natasha.”

She smiles.

+

Sam starts coming to the living room every night, always an hour behind Natasha. They talk. Not often, but they do. Natasha doesn’t know why there are certain things she’ll say at night that she wouldn’t during the day, but she supposes that that’s how she is. There’s something about sitting in the darkness disturbed only by the moon that makes it seem safer for her to say, “The world knows terrible things about me now.”

It’s something she’d say in the daylight, has said in the daylight, but she’d never let it come out so vulnerable.

“I know,” Sam says. He also seems to take some kind of comfort from the night, uses it to let his exhaustion, his anxiety through when during the day he’s all easy smiles and good advice.

“It’s my fault. I’ve done terrible things. Even with SHIELD, I did terrible things, I just thought I was doing them for the right reasons.”

Sam doesn’t say anything to that, he just breathes.

It’s enough.

“I can’t do enough good to cancel out the bad,” she says, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.”

“Sometimes that’s all you can do,” Sam says.

She reaches out her hand in the darkness for him to take.

He takes it.

+

During breakfast one day, Bucky announces, “I don’t like the star.”

Steve frowns. “The stars?”

“No,” Bucky says patiently. “The star.” He gestures at the red star painted on his metal arm. “I want it gone.”

Natasha thinks that’s the first time she’s heard Bucky say that: I want.

She was wondering when he’d get around to it, ever since she noticed him rubbing at the star like he was trying to wash it off without water.

No one suggests they scrape the star off, since Bucky tends to get violent when tools get too close to him.

“We’ll get some paint tonight,” Sam says, gesturing between him and Natasha. “Tomorrow we’ll take care of it.”

Steve smiles at Bucky. Bucky smiles back.

Natasha thinks about how Sam assumes she’s going to be with him during the night. She assumes it too.

+

Before they started looking for Bucky, Sam and Steve bought an old car. It’s a dull copper color and the paint is peeling, but it works just fine. It’s efficient.

Now, Natasha sits shotgun and stares out into the dark. It’s starting to snow. Winter, as far as she can tell, has come early.

But she’s used to long winters.

She and Sam haven’t ever done this before, haven’t ever gone to town at this time of night, haven’t ever done anything at this time of night but talk. Generally, Sam’s the one who goes to town and buys groceries and the rest. The rest of them are technically in hiding, but Natasha thinks that if her skinny jeans and hoodie were good enough to mask her identity in the United States, they’ll work well enough in Canada.

It’s a small town, but there’s a hardware store open twenty four hours, and Natasha and Sam wander through the paint under the fluorescent lights until they finally find something that matches the silver of Bucky’s arm.

It’s not a short drive back to the cabin, and it’s hard to see through the snow, so Sam and Natasha don’t talk.

By the time they’re back, sunlight’s peeking through the trees and Steve’s busy trying to soothe Bucky after one of his nightmares.

+

“How’s it going?” Natasha asks Steve casually.

He’s outside, leaning on one of the walls of the cabin. It’s a pose that makes him look like he should be smoking, but he’s not.

It’s snowing again, and the cold wind is whipping at his hair. His cheeks are flushed red.

“Fine,” he mutters. He looks tired.

(It’s been a long night, they’re all long nights, they are.)

“Yeah? What’re you doing out here?” she asks.

“I just needed some fresh air.”

She bumps his shoulder with hers. “I figured you wouldn’t be too big on the snow, considering.”

He smiles. “It’s not that bad. It’s just…it’s hard being inside sometimes. It’s a small cabin.”

“Too small for all of us,” Natasha agrees.

“I keep having these nightmares, but when I wake up I forget what they were about.”

Trust Steve to be upset about something like that. He’s not the type who’s comfortable with not knowing. Natasha understands.

She nods. “You should come back inside. Sam and Bucky are watching TV. I’ve heard it corrupts your mind.”

Steve grins. “How could I say no to that?”

They head back inside.

“Steve, Natasha,” Bucky says quietly in response to seeing them.

He remembers Sam’s name too.

Lately, he remembers all of their names more often than not.

+

Natasha walks into the living room and pauses briefly, because Sam’s there on the couch, head bowed.

It’s unexpected, him being up before her.

She walks over to him and sits down, not as close as she usually does. Sam’s shaking with the repressed sobs of somebody who’d rather be doing anything but crying.

He turns away from her.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time,” Natasha says. You don’t have to fake it all the time, he told her once.

“I have to be. People count on me, Nat.”

“I’m not counting on you right now.”

The sobs are under control now, but Natasha can still see a tear or two drip off of Sam’s chin.

“It’s the dreams,” he finally says, “It’s seeing it over and over again. It’s Riley.”

She’s heard a lot about Riley.

“I’m tired of seeing him fall.” Sam scrubs at his face with one hand. “No, I’m just tired. I spend all day being the well-adjusted one and then at night I get all fucked up.”

Natasha wraps an arm around his shoulders and leans into him. “At least we’ve got each other to be fucked up with.”

Sam laughs sharply. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

The repressed shaking has started up again.

Natasha doesn’t speak. She just breathes.

She hopes it’s enough.


End file.
